A Revisionist's History: I Will Fly

All that talk about the Grand Caravan reminded me a little of a different vehicle: the Plymouth Volaré! I contend that the Volaré—the down-sized Chrysler station wagon of the post-embargo era—is the spiritual predecessor of the Grand Caravan. Both vehicles were designed and manufactured to more effectively haul families and gear. Both vehicles, once reaching a certain mileage, wound up among the ranks of service vehicles littering constructions sites and industrial parks the nation over. Not that this can be proven, but I have my reasons for believing it.

 

Before leaving on an LDS mission with my Grandmother in the late 80’s, my grandfather sold dish soaps and supplies to restaurants, bars, and other roadside eateries sprinkled throughout Southeast Idaho and Western Wyoming. Most summers growing up, I would spend a week or two living with Grandpa Howell in Idaho Falls, or in later years, Boise. During those early years, when Grandpa stilled lived in Idaho Falls, he would often take me with him as he ventured to scenic locales like Bone, Ririe, Swan Valley, Jackson, and Driggs. I don’t remember much about these trips. But I do remember a few things. . . .

One time grandpa bought me a sandwich at a convenience store. Still naïve enough to believe that all prepared food you pay for must be good, I consumed more than half before Grandma Howell pointed out that my sandwich was moldy. Grandpa Howell insisted the green moldy flecks were "spices." As I recall, I finished the sandwich. One time as Grandpa Howell maneuvered through a windy, dirt, “short curt” through the mountains, the car rolled a little too closely to the edge. While Amy and I stared on with mixed horror and fascination, Grandma Howell came to the rescue vocally expressing her concern.

 

The one common thread through all these experiences and many others was the Plymouth Volaré station wagon. Over a period of several years, I remember Grandpa Howell driving both a Plymouth Volaré station wagon (complete with faux wood paneling) and a Dodge Aspen sedan (a badge-engineered twin to the Volaré). I traversed many a mile ensconced in their luxurious, vinyl-swathed appointments.

 

As a career, soap salesman doesn’t rank high on the relative compensation scale. No doubt with an eye to supplementing income, Grandpa Howell would often bring home his clientele’s discarded commercial dishwashers. He would clean ‘em, repair ‘em, and resell ‘em to his clientele. Even as a boy, I admired that. At least until he would ask me to detail the stainless steel dishwashers with an S.O.S. pad in the driveway. What was truly impressive though was his ability to shoe-horn those dishwashers into the back of the Volaré. Somehow, with the tailgate up, the cavernous maw of the Volaré managed to swallow the dishwasher. I want to say that Grandpa also strapped a dishwasher to his handy, chrome-plated roof rack, but that may be entirely fictional.  

 

Born in 1929, my grandpa was the product of the depression—as if that were not already immediately apparent. Resourcefulness, pragmatism, and frugality, these things ran deep in Grandpa Howell. To carry the family through the tight times or perhaps to free up valuable income, Grandpa used a sledge to crack the concrete pad in his garage. Then he excavated a potato cellar beneath the floor, covering it with an oil-stained piece of plywood to prevent an unintended trip into the inky blackness below.

 Only once did I manage to muster the courage to descend into the pit. The cool, the dark, the moist and a spare patch of relatively bright light from the cobwebbed garage window above left a clear impression on my young mind. I vaguely recall that the potato farmers in Grandpa’s ward or stake would allow members of the Church to harvest the potato “remnants.”

I’m still not sure how I managed to swing this, since potato harvest was usually in the Fall, but I once joined Grandpa on his potato harvest. Lending the whole event an air of near criminality, all this went down at dusk. Again, reaching back into the dustbin on this one, I remember Grandpa driving his Dodge Aspen, the sedan, out into the fields. We filled the trunk and the entire backseat with potatoes. It was a stupefying volume of the potatoes. It must have weighed several hundred pounds. By the time we finished it was dark and light from the dome-lamp spilled out onto the dry dusty field. Staggering beneath the load, the Aspen’s wheels sank into their wells while the headlights shone skyward as we bounced back to town.

 
I’m not sure if there is a moral to this story. But, I will say that if any man ever deserved a pickup (before the age when the pickup became America’s best-selling vehicle for 30 years running), Grandpa Howell was that man. As the owner of a 20-year-old anemic Nissan pickup and the former owner of a Dodge Grand Caravan, perhaps I inherited an ounce of Grandpa Howell’s Depression-era Good Sense.